Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Robert Carlyle, Victoria Hamilton, David Haig, Lisa Palfrey, Marsha Thompson, Edward Bennett, Lucy Cohu, Richard Pepple, Alexa Davies, Ben Crompton, Jane Horrocks, Holly Cattle, Gregg Chilingirian, Anthony Flanagan, Emily Fairn, Cavan Clerkin, Yasmin Al-Khudhairi, Geoffrey McGivern, Rina Mahoney, Wil Johnson, Khalid Laith.
Our perception of government is not only flawed, it is a dangerous and unsustainable in a modern setting; for what goes on behind the scenes of 10 Downing Street, the secret doors of power, and in the inner sanctum that is the Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, is not for the faint hearted or those who deny that some meetings are not taken place in public for the fear of upsetting the children, the electorate, or as Orwell observantly wrote, The Proles.
The third series of COBRA deals with the understanding that not every action taken against the state is instigated by a foreign power, or indeed that derived by cosmic circumstances; for perhaps there is no greater threat to national security that that derived from the untapped power at the hands of those who do not know what they can achieve if they were to say no.
Such has been the insight into all that can bring a government down that the writers behind COBRA could be said to have more than a special route to observational habits within the inner workings of the hive mind when the Prime Minister and those they choose to have around them in the direst moments of leading the country, are under attack.
Season three places the observation directly at the heart of those who rightly are confronting the government on issues that are close to home, in a direct jab at the waste of money, investment, and time in the HS 2 debacle, a small village is the battle ground laid bare and the place where treachery and deceit are the ammunition in which to attack Robert Sutherland for what may be a final attempt at forcing him to stand down from his position of power, and in typical fashion the trigger is being pulled from behind the scenes, by a new minister of the realm, and played with exceptional dynamic hatred by the impeccable Jane Horrocks.
The message across the six-part series is palpable, and one that, whilst perhaps is over egged for show, never meaning to be a true depiction of handling a crisis, is enough for all to understand that the wheels within wheels that grind the machinery of government onwards, will always come up shiny when looked up with the benefit of time.
With Jane Horricks in particular fine form as Victoria Dalton, the comfortable brilliance of David Haig as Deputy Prime Minister Archie Glover-Morgan, and Robert Carlyle once more delivering sincerity in a role that calls for a Machiavellian adaptability, COBRA continues to inform gently but stepping up the drama by admitting that the people are the ones who wield greater power if they can be organised in unity.
Ian D. Hall